Erica Whittingham Wiki
Erica Whittingham Biography
Who is Erica Whittingham ?
Derby Crown Court heard how Erica Whittingham was waiting in her car in front of HMP Sudbury and then took Michael Seddon after she left a decoy in his cell to fool the guards.
A prison official helped a dangerous thief escape from Derbyshire jail after falling in love and starting a relationship with him behind bars.
For the next six months she stayed in contact with his mistress, meeting him in hotels in England and buying him gifts, such as clothes, while he fled.
Whittingham said that she had fallen in love with the violent thief who had been part of a gang that tied up and beat an elderly farmer. He was captured after he entered into a relationship with another woman.
Now the 33-year-old will return to prison as a prisoner rather than an officer, after being incarcerated for three years.wikipedia
How old is Erica Whittingham ?
She is 33 year old.
Recorder Balraj Bhattia QC said: ‘You knew what you were doing was wrong and I am satisfied you were complicit in his escape.
You were responsible for chasing him away knowing he was a runaway prisoner.
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“You were an accomplice that he was illegally at liberty for a long period.”
Daren Samat, the prosecutor, said Whittingham and Seddon began a relationship when she was working at HMP Dovegate in Staffordshire, where he was working at the time.
She said that after Seddon was transferred to HMP Sudbury, they stayed in contact with him using a smuggled mobile phone and she using a “burner” phone.
Samat said: ‘On October 1, 2019, Mr Seddon escaped from HMP Sudbury.
Derby Crown Court heard the pair had maintained contact using an illegal mobile phone in Seddon’s cell and a burner phone owned by Whittingham
“ He had left a decoy on the bed, left prison and got into a car where the defendant took him to Stoke train station, from where he took a train to Liverpool.
“Intelligence showed that there were suspicions that she had started a relationship with him while she was working at Dovegate and the next day while she was at work, she was detained.”
Samat said cell phone analysis showed the couple had been in contact after Seddon Dovegate left for Sudbury.
She said that over the next six months she was illegally at large and they met on at least eight occasions, including at a hotel in Birmingham and in Manchester, Tamworth, Lincolnshire, Crewe, Merseyside and Bicester.
Samat said Seddon was arrested in Bournemouth in March 2020 after forming a new relationship with a different woman.
Whittingham, of Bramshall, Uttoxeter, previously pleaded guilty to harboring a runaway prisoner and misconduct in public office.
Mark Sharman, his attorney, said that since he was fired by the Correctional Service, his client had found work in a nursing home.
He said that she has represented her country internationally in Badminton and that at the time of the crime she had separated from her husband, with whom she had been for 11 years.
Sharman said: ‘She is brutally honest in her pre-sentencing report when she relates that she had found someone (Seddon) whom she loved.
Whether that was reciprocal or not, that’s what she believed.
She was in love with this man.
Seddon, of Bootle, was 22 when he was jailed in 2011 for his involvement in a horrific robbery.
He belonged to a gang of four men convicted of tying a 78-year-old farmer to a chair in his own home and beating him in a two-hour ordeal.
At this week’s hearing, he was told that he had previously been given an additional six months to the one he is serving for escaping legal custody.
Erica Whittingham Quicks and Facts
- Erica Whittingham waited outside HMP Sudbury for her lover Michael Seddon
- Violent robber Seddon, left a decoy in his cell to trick guards during his escape
- The couple met up in hotels at least eight times over a period of six months
- The court heard Wittingham, 33, has now split from her husband of 11 years
